The holidays
don’t have to be fraught with tension, as lifelong friends Lily
Cavanaugh and Cameron Greene discover in Mistletoe Between Friends when
they cook up a scheme to fool their family and friends.

The Snowflake Inn shows
rivals Grace Brodie and Riley Walsh that Christmas is a time when dreams come
true—even if you’ve given up on those dreams long ago.

Excerpt
from Mistletoe Between Friends

Monday morning came way too soon for Lily. She’d
given herself multiple pep talks and reminded herself how important it was to
do the right thing for Cam.

It just sucked that the right thing for Cam
was going to be torture for her.

Ever on time, Cameron arrived to pick Lily
up at exactly 7:00 a.m. Knowing he was a stickler about time, she’d made sure
that she was ready and waiting for him. But she could tell by the look on his
face when she opened the door that he was surprised she was ready.

“What?” she asked.

Cam looked her up and down and then at the
suitcase beside her. “You’re ready,” he said with just a hint of disbelief.

A shy smile crept across Lily’s face. “You
told me you’d be here at seven, so I was ready for seven. Actually, I was ready
at six forty-five. Impressive, right?”

His eyes narrowed slightly. “You’re never
ready when I tell you what time I’m coming to pick you up. I build a cushion
for Lily time.”

The smile shifted to playful annoyance as
Lily cocked a hip and crossed her arms over her chest. “If it would make you
feel better, I can change clothes and decide that I want a bowl of cereal
before we leave.”

“No, no,” he said with a slight chuckle. “I’m
sorry. I guess I should have just said thank you, right?”

“No,” she corrected. “You should have
offered to put my suitcase in the car because all this chitchat will make us
late.” Without another word, Cameron reached beyond Lily and grabbed her case
while she locked up her condo. “I watched the Weather Channel last night while
I was packing, and they said it’s going to snow while we’re up there. Won’t
that be beautiful? We can see snow in Central Park!”

Cam shrugged; he’d never given much thought
to snow in Manhattan and didn’t care about it now. They lived just outside of
Raleigh, so it wasn’t as if they’d never seen snow before. But that was just
one of the things about Lily he adored—that the little things in life made her
happy.

Lily had a bigger heart than anyone he’d
ever known. He knew that even though she made light of it, she was easily hurt
by her family. It didn’t help that her parents always made her feel like she
wasn’t living up to her full potential, or that she had an older sister
everyone seemed to think walked on water. Cam knew the real Lily. If anyone
took the time to get to know her and saw beyond her inability to find a career,
they’d see a person who’d give them the world.

For as far back as Cameron could remember,
he’d been in love with Lily Cavanaugh. While everyone else around them treated
him like a freak because of his intelligence, Lily always considered him Cam, her
friend. He’d never once thought about telling her how he felt because the last
thing he wanted was to lose Lily as his friend. Most days, she was the only one
who kept him sane.

And now he was going to have her to himself
for nearly a week.

Once they were on the road, Cam glanced over
at Lily and saw the serene smile on her face. “What are you thinking about
right now?” he asked.

“Actually, I was wondering if we were going
to play the part of boyfriend and girlfriend during your conference or if we
were waiting to kick it into gear when we got back.”

He nodded and then pondered the situation. “I
suppose it wouldn’t hurt to try out the act around my colleagues before we
return home.” His tone was rather cut and dried, like he was talking about a
root canal.

“How about a little enthusiasm, champ?” she
asked sarcastically. “This was your idea, remember? And if we’re going to pull
this off and get four months of freedom from our parents, you can’t talk about
our relationship like it’s a chore.”

Cam turned to look at her as if she were
crazy. “Talk about our relationship? It’s seven fifteen in the morning, Lil. We
haven’t been around anybody except each other. What do you want me to do?”

She sighed. “You’ll need to show a little
more excitement if you’re going to be believable as my boyfriend.”

What had he gotten himself into? “Why,
exactly, do I have to do that?”

“Cam, everyone who knows me knows that I’m a
fairly happy-go-lucky person. You and I are complete opposites. I’m going to
have to tone it down a little, but on the flip side, you’re going to have to
kick it up a notch. You know, crack a smile or a joke once in a while. Laugh.” She
looked at him quizzically. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

Honestly, he didn’t. When he had devised the
plan to have a make-believe romance with Lily to survive the holidays, Cam had
simply thought that by saying they were involved, people would get off their
backs. But as Lily explained the complexities of the situation, he realized he
was greatly unprepared.

And that was simply unacceptable.

Taking a fortifying breath, he said, “Okay. It’s
not like we have to play twenty questions to know each other better. We already
know everything about each other. What do you suggest?”

“Well,” she said, “it would probably help if
we held hands when out in public.”

Cameron considered her suggestions and—without
reacting in any way, shape, or form—decided that this wasn’t going to be such a
bad thing after all. He’d finally have the opportunity to touch Lily, to kiss
Lily, and it was all her idea. He really was brilliant.

“Seems simple enough,” Cam said. “Done.” He
reached for her hand and held it while he focused on the road and drove one-handed.
He wouldn’t normally do that because safety dictated that he drive with his hands
in the ten-and-two position. It took all of thirty seconds for him to start to
squirm.

“This is physically painful for you, isn’t
it?”

“What? No,” he denied although he was lying
through his teeth. He wanted to concentrate on the feel of her hand in his, but
couldn’t when they were on the road.

Lily pulled her hand away and almost burst
out laughing at how quickly Cam’s hand went back to the steering wheel. “Okay,
baby steps. We’ll only hold hands when we’re walking. How does that sound?” She
smiled at the annoyance on Cam’s face.

“Safety isn’t something to take lightly,
Lily.”

“Of course it isn’t,” she agreed. “I mean,
driving twenty miles under the speed limit and one-handed? What was I thinking?”

“It’s a little early for all of this
sarcasm,” he said dryly. “So other than hand-holding, what am I supposed to do?”

Was he kidding? At this rate, she could
probably convince him to act out every one of her fantasies that she’d ever had
about him. But that would be wrong.

Wouldn’t it?

Yes, yes, yes. Bad Lily! What were you
thinking?

“Kissing,” she said before she could stop
herself. “We’ll probably have to kiss in front of people from time to time. And
none of that buddy-buddy, on-the-cheek stuff. Like…real kissing.”

Bad, bad Lily!

She saw him considering the idea from all
sides as usual. He never agreed to anything without thinking it through. “I
guess I can,” he said, seeming bored with the idea.

“That’s the spirit,” she said and was relieved
to see them turning onto the exit ramp for the airport. If all went well,
within a matter of hours she would be walking around Manhattan with Cam and
presenting the image of a happy couple.

Project Girlfriend had begun!

Excerpt
from The Snowflake Inn

She was feeling the burn and could clearly
see the light at the end of the tunnel—or in this case, the clearing in the
trees that meant the parking lot was close—when it happened. Her knee buckled.
A cry of dismay escaped before she could help it, and next thing she knew, she
was on the ground.

“Dammit,” she cried, pulling her knee to her
chest as she rocked. “Why now?” Tears threatened to fall, and all she could
think about was the walk to the car and how painful it was going to be. As much
as her physical therapist had told her recovery would take time, Grace felt
like her body had betrayed her.

Oh, right. He asked you a question. “What?
Oh, sorry… Um… Yes, I’m fine,” she stammered and tried again to stand. But her
darn knee wasn’t quite onboard with the rest of her, and she went down again.
She muttered a curse and felt a blush creep up her cheeks in embarrassment.

He quirked a brow as he looked at her. “You
don’t look like you’re fine,” he said seriously and crouched beside her. “Did
you hurt your knee?”

Grace nodded. “About six months ago in a
skiing accident. I was in rehab and physical therapy for months. I just decided
to try to go back to my jogging routine—at a slower pace, of course—and I
thought I was doing okay. Until about five minutes ago.”

She shook her head. “In therapy, I can run
twice as long without any issues.”

“That’s on a treadmill. This is an uneven
jogging path. It’s completely different.”

Now she glared at him. “Thanks for pointing
out the obvious,” she snapped. If she had better luck, she’d be able to jump to
her feet and walk away with a sassy sway to her hips.

Clearly, she had no luck. On her third
attempt at standing, Cute Angry Guy wrapped a strong arm around her back and
helped her to her feet. “Thank you,” she said quietly and did her best to
disengage from his embrace. But he didn’t let her go. Looking up, Grace found
herself trapped by the bluest eyes she had ever seen. Her breath seemed to
catch, and she couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. The only thing saving her from
complete and total embarrassment was the fact that he seemed just as mesmerized
by her as she was by him.

“Can you walk?” he finally asked, his voice
sounding rough to her ears. Nodding weakly, unwilling to break their eye
contact, she tried once again to move away, but his arm seemed to tighten
around her. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

He clearly wasn’t big on conversation. At
the moment, that suited Grace just fine because she was having a hard time
remembering how to form words. Cute Angry Guy was big and a feast for all of
her senses, but she had to be careful to remember that he was a stranger. She
knew nothing about him, and as much as she wanted to ask him at least a dozen
questions, there was something to be said for companionable silence.

And walking really close together.

Deciding to just enjoy the moment, Grace
pressed herself more firmly against his warm, solid frame and began to walk
slowly with him toward her car. With the way they had been seeing each other
all around town for the past couple of days, she figured he’d know which car
was hers without her saying anything.

Sure enough, he did.

As they approached her little white sedan,
they stopped and Grace pulled her keys out of her jacket pocket. It was then
that she realized what a complete mess she must look like: black leggings,
white jacket, and a green wool scarf to match her green socks…ugh. And then
there was the hair.

She was so not going to think about the
hair.

Normally after her jog, Grace would take a
few minutes in the car to relax and apply some lip gloss and fix her hair
before going anyplace else. That was why she hadn’t been worried about
approaching him the other day in Starbucks. But now that he’d seen her in
this—well, in all her ill-fated glory—she was certain her current appearance
had killed any attraction (real or imagined).

Quickly and painfully.

Awesome.

“So, um…thanks for the help,” she said,
feeling awkward. She fidgeted with her hair, doing her best to tame it, and
cursed herself for refusing to wear a hat. At least a hat could have camouflaged
the flyaway mess.

His lips twitched with an almost-smile as he
watched her fidget around. “Are you going to be okay to drive?”

Grace ran her hand through her hair and
cursed when it got stuck. With a wince, she pulled it out and forced herself to
play with her keys and try to remain calm. “Yes,” she said, wishing that the
parking lot would just open up beneath her and take her away. “I’ll be fine.
I’ll go home and do the whole ice-and-heat thing, take some ibuprofen, and call
it a day.”

“You should probably call your therapist and
let him take a look at it.”

She shook her head. “I don’t have one here.”

“Then you should set up an appointment for
when you get home.”

Grace gave him an odd look. “Get home? I am
home. I live here.”

Now it was Cute Angry Guy’s turn to give her
an odd look. “You live here?”

She nodded. “I just moved here about six
weeks ago. I thought I was done with therapy, so I haven’t bothered to look up
a therapist. But I guess I’ll have to now.” She shrugged and turned to unlock
her car. Once the door was open, she turned and forced a smile on her face.
“Anyway,” she said and did her best to relax, “thank you for the help.”

“My pleasure.” His voice was deep and a
little rough, and Grace almost wanted to purr. Hearing the word pleasure come
from that mouth—which was pretty spectacular too—had her heart rate going into
overdrive.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you around,” she
said brightly and sat in the car, wincing slightly as she bent her leg.

“Don’t wait to find a therapist. Call the
one you know and see if you can get a referral.”

“Thanks, I will.” She was just about to ask
his name, but he turned and walked away. And the rear view was as enticing as
the front one. Grace almost had to fan herself. Her first instinct was to call
out to him, but really, it was probably better not to. If he had been following
her these past couple of days, wouldn’t he have asked for her name or phone
number? The fact he hadn’t just proved Grace was imagining things. Bad hair and
wardrobe aside, the man couldn’t seem to get away from her fast enough.

With a depressed sigh, Grace pulled the car
door shut and decided to cut her losses and go. The drive through the small
downtown area didn’t take long, and when she saw Starbucks coming up, she
decided she could deal with the pain for a little bit longer. A white-chocolate
peppermint mocha would go a long way in helping her deal with it, of that she
was certain.

It didn’t take long to park, and then she
was surrounded by people she was coming to know. She smiled and made small talk
while she waited her turn in line at the coffee shop. When one person was left
in front of her, Grace felt an odd tingle go down her spine. Turning her head,
she had to suppress a grin. There in the doorway stood Cute Angry Guy, and if
her eyes weren’t deceiving her, he was doing his best to suppress his own
smile.

She wished he’d stop trying to hide it. With
a face like that, he had to have a smile that was positively breathtaking.
Certain she’d never really know, Grace turned her attention back to the counter
and placed her order as she made her way to the register to pay. She was
mentally congratulating herself on the fact she hadn’t turned around again.
Self-control—she’d known she had it in her somewhere.

“Thank you,” Grace said with a smile as she
took the hot beverage from the young barista. Turning slowly in the crowd, she
made her way carefully to the door, still doing her best to not look around and
see if cute-angry-smirking-guy was still there. I guess I’ll never know, she
sighed inwardly and headed back out to her car.

If her knee hadn’t been in so much pain,
Grace was certain she’d have a little pep in her step. Being rescued by a sexy
stranger was certainly a great way to start her day. A quick glance at her
watch showed she needed to get moving or she’d be late for work. And with so
much on the line, the last thing she wanted to do was mess that up.

Although she doubted anyone would blame her
if they had seen the sexy reason for her delay.

New York Times and USA Today Bestseller Samantha Chase released her debut
novel, Jordan's Return, in November 2011. Teaching creative writing to students
from elementary through high school motivated Samantha to take that step as
well. Since then, she has become a NYT and USA today bestselling author. She
lives with her husband of 24 years and their two sons in North Carolina.

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